The Adventurous Character Tom in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The Adventurous Character Tom in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The needle pricked the finger to let the blood drip on to the peace of pine shingle to finalize the oath that was to keep them "mum" (76) about the murder they had just witnessed. Mark Twain's book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1985) takes place in the mid 1800's and tells the adventures of Tom Sawyers adventures. The adventures started out with Tom and his friend, Huckleberry Fin, sneaking out and accidentally being witnesses to a murder. They then promise to never tell a word of it. Throughout the book they forgot about the murder and decide to go and play pirates and search for gold, but a trial about the murder finally comes, and it is haunting Tom because an innocent person, Muff Potter, is about to be executed. Tom opens his mouth to tell who the murderer was and then both Tom and his friend are in danger of being the next victims, but fate catches up with the murderer and he starves in a cave when the door is locked shut. The novel's finale is Tom and Huck finding the chest of gold, which made them both prosper with wealth. Throughout the novel, Twain uses a great approach to making the novel a very good read because of the fascinating characterization of Tom Sawyer. The dominant techniques that Twain uses to characterize Tom as an adventurous young man are his appearance, his thoughts, what others think of him, his actions, and his speech.

Tom's appearance is the first element that enhances his character. His appearance is always changing. Tom starts most days looking like a cleaned up young man in nice clothes, but it usually never failed that through Tom's adventures of his rough play, fighting, mischief or swimming his clothes would end t...

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...t example because if a person were in a fight they wouldn't say "You say enough when you have had enough." The use in the story makes it more realistic.

Another good example of Tom's speech is when he was talking about the money that the robbers had got. He said, " 'Tain't a dream, then, 'tain't a dream! Somehow I most wish it was. Dog'd if I don't, Huck" (169). This is another good example because Tom was really excited when he stated this, so he wouldn't worry about good speech and grammar.

Twain did a very good job of characterizing Thomas Sawyer. To do this he effectively used the techniques of characterization including appearance, his thoughts, what others think of him, his actions, and his speech to formulate a very interesting exploiting character.

Work Cited

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985.